Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Like a commercial, death by quantity,For that most dismal catalogue of names;And we are pikers, grieving by low primesAnd little stones on picayune display.How dare we? asks the Russian winter. HowNow, this memorial mound of mismatched socks?

Have you not heard of Blutenwald? they ask,Who populate the textbooks. No, by God,I haven’t, but I blush, ashamed of 1,3, a handful of minimum loss--A butcher, a baker, an artisan of lightIn watts too small for speakers on the Platz.

No one in history bears names like these,Compiled like dogs and cats. They have no dates,Vice-consular assistants; no pink roseTells aphids how they’re called, in Latin yet.It snows on them in aggregate. It rainsOn mockingbirds, on shrews and shrubs. On mine.

Friday, July 07, 2017

Ants, they may whisper, but they’re hoping forSomething preposterous, something more the sizeOf Cincinnati, something which can catchA mortgage in mid-air and snap its neck.They may say shadows, even in the dark,But what they mean are little men with knives,Carving their names in the venetian blinds,Altering light. Dressed up they may exudeThe confidence of snipers, but they wearAn amulet of frog hair on each wrist,Boasting that they walked miles to cure DTs.Under the bed the suitcase is packed, the tagTied with a chain cased in a plastic sleeve,Directing it To Whom It May Concern.

Monday, July 03, 2017

Devolvus, underground, preserves,

By lying still, his fraying nerves.Yet in the sun, his brother walksAbove, and steels himself with talksAnd chatter, as if they were kidsAnd wonted. And no mom forbidsOne’s shoes inside or singing loudOr hamming it up to please the crowdOf featured hangers-on. If heShould wish to lie there quietly,Devolvus doesn’t say or swear,Since he has time to spill and share,By wit, by verve, by joie-de-not.What was that punchline? All forgot.